Whenever an organization thinks of migrating their infrastructure over to a public cloud, the first question that strikes the organization is cost. AWS provides major advantages over on-premise environments as there is no upfront cost from using AWS. Thus, there is no CapEx requirement as AWS works on OpEx. That means a customer pays only on a monthly basis based on actual consumption of AWS resources.
The following table differentiates cost on various counts between AWS and on-premise environments:
Pricing model | One time upfront cost | Monthly cost |
| |
Public cloud | On-premise DC | Public cloud | On-premise DC | |
Server hardware | 0 | $$ | $$ | 0 |
Network hardware | 0 | $$ | 0 | 0 |
Hardware maintenance | 0 | $$ | 0 | $ |
Software OS | 0 | $$ | $ | 0 |
Power and cooling | 0 | $$ | $ | $ |
Data center space | 0 | $$ | 0 | 0 |
Administration | 0 | $$ | 0 | $$$ |
Storage | 0 | $$ | $$ | 0 |
Network bandwidth | 0 | $ | $ | $ |
Resource management software | 0 | 0 | $ | $ |
24x7 support | 0 | 0 | $ | $ |
Cost comparison example is based on some assumptions